Quick Poll - Do you believe in God?

[Alex K]

How can anyone believe if he does not loose his religion time by time? How can anyone be atheist if he did not believe 'something' before to reject?

Seriously? One does not have to first believe nonsense to reject it.

I've heard it many times - you can't criticise religion if you're not a believer. Why, I don't know, but it's surely a reassuring position for the believer.

[robvalue]

The power of his own ego?

He's special enough that his God came down and helped him. All those people asking for help, and he was the special one who got it.

Who wouldn't get an ego boost from that? When you drill down, that's all faith really is. The power of ego.

Right, fuck all the babies dying of aids and starvation. God came to see me.

[VAN BELLE Jean Marc]

Thank you Whateverist, for sending me an email to [email protected] to get back (each quarter i 'earn' money with making declarations of VAT and taxes, i started as accountant in 1983, then changed it in because i thought it would be replaced by computers for something like programming, assembling and EDP, than became a sort of 'lawyer' (a non lying one, so i am not an official lawyer), and would like to become an official clinical psychologist, Master at UGent or somewhere else, i do not yet know the next 10 years). I will try to answer all your questions above, but all of them seem true:

Chas: "believe nonsense to reject it" Nonsense comes from 'sense > no sense'. First we sense things with our middle mammal brains (250 mio years old middle brain and our even older body) brains but then we 'decide' with our 'human' brains (more recent, i presume they are for 100% also mammal, even with our languagepossibility that moves our mouth and tongue) whether they can be 'used' or are 'sensefull'. It seems like you say we have to accept a sense or reject it. You take the 'position' that 'believe in God' or 'believe in a god' is nonsens. If you really do that, why would you then change your mind sometimes in other opinions? I think you have to step over the borther to come to me or other believers to talk a lot more about it and the result can be then that 1. "you do not reject in anymore and understand the other better" 2. "you still reject it and even stronger if you listened very well and you had someone with a really stupid belief, there a lot of them, see Robvalue's topic) 3. "the other one begins to reject his belief because he follows you 4. "the other one gets fundamentalistic..."
In all of 4 cases, i think there is progress (or degress or backgress, i create words here, but i presume you can follow). Believing is "not rejecting even when you have a reason to". Again: this is MY opinion, other believers have other beliefs, even all non believers here have... (sorry, i like to get you a little bit upset) different beliefs or points of views at least (a believer is not another believer, a non believer does not equal another non believer).
whateverist: "in anything I recognize as a god"
whateverist: "believe and not believe in a god"
whateverist: "treat others as peers" "But for me, no gods thank you"
whateverist: "James Hillman" "as if" Wow!!! "By that light..."
whateverist: >>> had to read this very slowly and 3 times, thank you!!!
whateverist: "talking to each other is less real or only transitory. That would be a mistake"
Pfft, i have read your topic three times and it is in one (though i read more) word: fantastic, magnificent, extraordinary!
i believe God is indeed something people 'recognize' but without knowing yet how the process of recognizing works and "what" they recognize. It is a process of years and a lot of life matters that go deeper than daily impressions as eating, running, doing sports, living, making love, but the start all that way in conjunction with others and alone with nature or your... own feelings and thoughts. What do we recognize? That is also the reason why we have to LOOSE our faith: we look for a reason, we find reasons, but every reason provides us (when we are honest) with more reasons. But during the years, when you are at the age of 20, you have found so many reasons and others also, that you have the opinion: we will find a reason for everything. And then suddenly, you think about something of "how the hell did i get HERE"? Or all reasons together feel different of the things i feel and there are other people who have had more 'life' (including problems) than others, and have a dual mode of living: "reasons + explanations" = going concern, and... something we can difficult fetch with words, today i will call this "knowing their is a pathway that is partially determined" tomorrow i will call it "nothing" and i will no longer even understand what i wrote here today. Every one will probably think of something different here, when talking about the 'non human feeling part'. When we are busy, we are even not aware of this part. But there were allways people who agreed with our ancestors who gave "their belief" words of religion as "God". "treat others as peers" "But forme, no gods thank you" is magnificent. i felt again the same way when my first son was born on October 3th, 1992. Later on with small kids, i saw they believed and i believed before even i got brains. Now i can 'bear' the thougts that my mind is believing, however when analysing everything with my left part of brains (that "would" hold also the positive emotions according to recent Pscyho and braindstudies) there is never left anything that could explain believing. Conclusing when analysing: There is no life anymore when you split in the smallest particles. It only lives when joined together. So i do not believe in a God and MAY not believe in a God that would influence my analystic brain when studying on things. But there is my left side of brain also, joining together the things and holding the negative emotions also). I mean it when telling as i scientis there is no room for God in my deductional way of working out study-cases. But accepting i have something from my birth on that i could not explain and i can now partially explain, helps me a lot. Perhaps my belief is only something to get things straight, a compass to help when loosing your way, unconsciousness intelligence that is far above conscious intelligence. And as a 'person' (even when that feels as only a part from all persons, group is more important to me than individuals, i am a communist though i am a liberalist also but only in this order and that does not exist in any political state, i presume) i believe that other persons were also right, all those years they became more an more (but slowly and only a little tiny bit) human while allways reframing and redescribing their 'belief in God'...

robvalue: ""i think they believe in believing" "who profess in God believe in God" God = stupid, useless word"
I agree: when i read about men who believe in God and yell that loud, it feels as a stupid, useless word. God is more abused than talked about in due respect to each other as living beings. I have my doubts of 'so called believers in the U.S.' and find more intelligent people here on this forum than i find people to communicate (in real terms) on forums about the bible etc. Too much men take things literally and that leads allways to fundamentalism.

whateverist: "misuse of "believing > less effortful; something I just check. "fervently wish" wow
You agree in this way, i think. I passed the time and sometimes a lot of people tell me "I would like to believe in a God as you do". This answer allways makes me... doubt again. I cannot longer say if i choose to believe, and in this phase of my life, it goes broader than my choice to believe or not, it is also about a choice of changing from work, going now for the studies of Clinical Psychology and getting famous with a film and books the next years, because i do not WANT to be famous, i only want to help people without them knowing my name or doing that, because that is what i believe, not what i want to believe. This is a very difficult matter, but i fear i have to get through this myself and, if i believed it worked for me already all my life and for my ancestors also, i do NOT doubt it will work out the way it 'shall' be. So, my atheist side is afraid, my theist side has not even the slightes fear (which is not normal again and so i fight my theist side also, because i do not aloud myself to live without fear, because i am a human, i am an animal and there are a lot of other animals who want to 'eat me alive', i have learned this with my atheist side and read it also in theist books).

robvalue: "supernatural experience" > bible > "what is it he's even believing"
It is not genetic, but educational/environmental that i was born christian and baptised. So i read the bible, no i only read the parts they wanted me to read. I did not like reading (reading was an injury to my 'creativity', i 'believed' at 20 - 40 years 'old') but the life of Jezus is astonishing: Being killed and not getting mad at others. Being killed for words, not by deads. Forgiving... No one can understand Jezus without saying he has completely god, sorry: got out of his mind. Later on, at 18 years, the priest (that i choosed later on to do our wedding also), asked me to study all other religions. I was astonished. I did, and this extreme tolerance made me loose my... religion. Only 10 years after i got to the same conclusion of 'life style' and 'ethical way of view' as THIS priest (i am NOT catholic, that is a constition, i was christian again = christ only means 'full of spirit') that i learned that the tolerance had initially killed faith... Very difficult but i began to understand how 'things like education' worked out between humans and within MY environment, so got interested in more and more environments of OTHERS (you!). And that is the essence of my name Jean = Johannes = John: charity for others, not for yourself. The second part (Marc = Marcus = warrier) is rather opposite to that, but i gave it a place also (atheist view: allways hearing your name, makes you brainwashed by your name; theist view: if you agree how your parents called you, perhaps you will becoming what they wanted you to give you or to be more than what they made of you). So my books of believe are NOT only bible (old and new testament), Qur'an (only recent), but all books i now begin to read, and especially my SCIENTIST books (World of Sciences, 1965, 30 parts, i think and i do have in triple, one for each of my kids if they wanted, because i found them under the bed of my superintelligent father Roger Van Belle after he died August 26th, 2004 and seemed to have a lot of his knowledge out of these books, and i... imitated him between 2004 to 2011 by reading the same books, they are extraordinary and explained on the level with pictures for dumb kids as I am, i never had an IQ above 130 and forget a lot but this means i can stick on to real important things to 'retain'). My 'supernatural experience' could be explained after some 12 years with normal science so was NO LONGER supernatural. So i follow you my God cannot be that "supernatural" as people think God would be when they still think they had theirselves a "only supernatural experience". But the people who wrote the bible knew a lot of men being killed and their stories lead to terms (this is MY interpretation, i never found it before on internet, but even then their must have already a lot of people who 'found out' the same logic as whatever i 'detect' or 'think to detect') as hell and heaven. The qur'an is also for me a source for people thinking about heaven and hell, but taken all the Mohammed timeperiode together, their were not killed many men during his life: As we ourselves they talk a lot about 'their wars' but only a few hundred or thousand people were killed when you are looking for real data. Even better: his first period of 'islam', they were only with less than hundred people to believe in for many years. His 'second life' started when moving to another village and when 'building' a state on his believe. A lot of muslims do not have problem with his first 'books' before the Hidjrah who are about real 'religion' (and when whine was not forbidden), but do have problems with the second part when defining how people have to behave (how many times they have to pray, how they have to pray, and then Mohammed had several wifes, but their wives were not allowed to have several men, which cannot be correct). Mohammed was a man and died a man, Jezus also. Perhaps he felt and understood things because of their 'extreem intelligence verbal intelligence quotient', and they did things we still now cannot explain that easy (I can explain a lot more of them than you do, because i walk all paths beside my own path). So what the hell did they believe? When re reading matters, Jezus never MADE the writings, others talked about him years after he was crucified. Moreover: the apostles, did they believe when they were scared to death and locked themselves up? Or did they believe 'again' when opening that building and coming outside to talk about what Jezus learned them as a Doctor/Professor. Did Jezus use the word God? No, he was Jewish and they do not use the word JHWH because they respect it too much or they know it cannot be understood (Mohammed used 100 names for Allah, so the same story in essence). So what did they believe? The old name 'El' (from Eliah, looks like El = God + Allah in one word) means also "Lord", so Jezus talked about 'Lord' and "My father". Did it not has to be "our father". I feel as being an old fassioned macho man like i am "a father" not only for my kids, but also for all kids, for all beings and do have respect for the mothers i see taking care of their and all kids also.

fidel: the power of ego

The best way: You say this way that everything is ego. Facebook is ego. Liking is ego. Not liking is better.

Most of us do believe for their ego. Most of us do not believe for their ego.

Try to get rid of your ego. A whole new world... oh sorry, it seems suddenly i begin to pray or talk in... religious words. But the atheist way can conclude the same style. With me, i have both sides that both same i have allways to get rid AGAIN of my small ego!

I hope you did not fall asleap with this 'lecture'. I think we all agree in a certain extent. Let us further think about it and... try to keep growing, changing, falling and standing up again. As mortals, not as immortals (did the Pope not get everyone mad by saying that "the cemetries lies full of people thinking they were immortal or thinking they were irreplacable". Wow!

[Chas]

Thank you Whateverist, for sending me an email to [email protected] to get back (each quarter i 'earn' money with making declarations of VAT and taxes, i started as accountant in 1983, then changed it in because i thought it would be replaced by computers for something like programming, assembling and EDP, than became a sort of 'lawyer' (a non lying one, so i am not an official lawyer), and would like to become an official clinical psychologist, Master at UGent or somewhere else, i do not yet know the next 10 years). I will try to answer all your questions above, but all of them seem true:

Chas: "believe nonsense to reject it" Nonsense comes from 'sense > no sense'. First we sense things with our middle mammal brains (250 mio years old middle brain and our even older body) brains but then we 'decide' with our 'human' brains (more recent, i presume they are for 100% also mammal, even with our languagepossibility that moves our mouth and tongue) whether they can be 'used' or are 'sensefull'. It seems like you say we have to accept a sense or reject it. You take the 'position' that 'believe in God' or 'believe in a god' is nonsens. If you really do that, why would you then change your mind sometimes in other opinions? I think you have to step over the borther to come to me or other believers to talk a lot more about it and the result can be then that 1. "you do not reject in anymore and understand the other better" 2. "you still reject it and even stronger if you listened very well and you had someone with a really stupid belief, there a lot of them, see Robvalue's topic) 3. "the other one begins to reject his belief because he follows you 4. "the other one gets fundamentalistic..."
In all of 4 cases, i think there is progress (or degress or backgress, i create words here, but i presume you can follow). Believing is "not rejecting even when you have a reason to". Again: this is MY opinion, other believers have other beliefs, even all non believers here have... (sorry, i like to get you a little bit upset) different beliefs or points of views at least (a believer is not another believer, a non believer does not equal another non believer).

I'm afraid I couldn't figure out what you are trying to say.

[FatAndFaithless]

Holy shit dude. Use the quote function, that mess is utterly unreadable.

[VAN BELLE Jean Marc]

For Chas:

Chas: "believe nonsense to reject it" Nonsense comes from 'sense > no sense'.

I'm afraid I couldn't figure out what you are trying to say.

Sorry, I will try again using your words (under your name):

"Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method."

Belief is not a position; it is an approach to claims and rewards.
Belief is not an object, it is a subject and a method at the same time, or timeless if you want to (which can not objected then).

We often say 'in the name of God'. What are 'we' if we say something in the name of? Can that be done? If not, you are indeed atheist. If you think, it can be done, they will think your a theist. Me, myself and i do not like saying 'in the name of' but however i prefer 'we' instead of 'i' when talking about... us (me, myself and i+). Can you as atheist, understand a theist and do you think i can understand you, presumed atheist, as a theist? Does this "make sense?" to you or is it as well "nonsense"?

If you do not understand, i will try it another way (inch'Allah... sorry the last was cartoonic sarcasm in me with what happened in Paris some two) weeks ago)

[Regina]

[emmasheba]

yep I do

[JohnTheRevolator]

What evidence?

[Fuzzy]

No, it's a complicated question really though, I do not believe in any gods of the major religions, but it'd be impossible to disprove the existence of a Deistic god.

Nevertheless I don't believe there is a god, there doesn't have to be, and even if there were then I think I can say for sure that it must be a Deist god and therefore kind of Irrelevant anyway. And certainly no divine carpenters or caravan raiders involved.